2015-11-21

What’s up with Greece then? Thousands of years after the
great minds of Aristoteles, Plato, Socrates, Archimedes, Euclid and a host of
other famous scientists and philosophers thought so hard that they pretty much
created civilization as we know it, there seems nowadays to be nothing other
than bad news about Greece in the average newspaper. Despite this, I figured that
any country where the road signs and newspaper headlines look like giant mathematical equations can’t be that bad and has to be worth a visit, so as soon as I found
a cheap flight I didn’t book twice.

The city of Thessaloniki is nicely situated on a massive bay,
a pleasant and scenic half-hour flight north of Athens. It’s surprisingly big –
apparently, more than a million people live there – but the central part is
relatively compact and, assuming you don’t mind constantly dodging cars and
motorbikes that seem hell-bent of running you over, it’s quite a pleasant place
to walk around. The seafront is especially nice – a great long walk next to a
busy road next to a seemingly infinite number of busy bars. There was certainly
not much sign of the Greek economic woes here – every drinking hole seemed to
be filled up with smart looking young people sipping cocktails, coffees and
perhaps even beer. Which brings me nicely to the main topic of this blog post:
beer.

The Greek beer scene has, apparently, been very sad, if not
tragic. Beer has traditionally been regarded by locals and tourists alike as a
golden, fizzy, ice-cold drink that doesn’t need to taste anything as it is
thrown down the gullet to quench a sudden thirst, so the selection in bars and
restaurants usually boils down to either “beer” or “no beer”. Therefore, it was
with very low expectations that I googled “the best beer bar in Thessaloniki” when
I arrived at my hotel. Imagine my delight, then, as the first result that
popped up was a recently opened place called “The Hoppy Pub” that had managed
to receive an amazing number of glowing reviews on the Ratebeer.com web site.
Needless to say, I wasted no time, since time is money, and the last thing
Greece needs is someone wasting time not spending money in their bars.

The pub is not hard to find if you know where it is, so I
figured out where it was and walked there at a brisk pace, avoiding both the
temptation to be distracted by other pubs and bars along the way and the hordes
of cars and motorbikes that tried to run me over. Once there, I located the
door, opened it, and went in. The scenery inside was simply wonderful. Along
the bar were 12 taps, each of which contained a fresh, interesting craft beer.
Along the walls were craft beer bottles, posters and other beautiful
decorations reminding you of, well, beer. Behind the bar were a bunch of
fridges containing an amazing selection of craft beers from around the world.
If beer was religion, this would be the place to worship. If beer was music,
this would be Greece’s best concert hall. If beer was more than just a fizzy,
cold, tasteless drink, this would be the place to drink it.

I like to try the local stuff if it doesn’t look too awful.
Greece is not a big country, so I decided that any Greek beer would be local,
especially since I had already travelled about 2000km that day in order to
drink it. I therefore asked the bartender, who happened to be a very friendly
and knowledgeable guy, what Greek beers he’d recommend. “Ah”, he said, “I’ve
got this IPA from a brewery called Septem which is very good – nicely hoppy and
fresh, yet balanced and sophisticated”. It felt a bit like I had won the
lottery, though since I’ve never won the lottery I may have to recalibrate this
sentence once I do. The bartender then proceeded to do what all good beer pubs
should do, namely offer a taste. It was great – a really good IPA, worthy of
comparison with the best.

It turned out that the bartender (who was also part owner)
was a real Greek Beer Geek (henceforth simply GBG), and there aren’t many of
those. The Greek scene is still lagging behind some of the more enlightened (in
the beery sense) parts of Europe, but things seem to be slowly changing, with
new GBGs emerging from the shadows all over the country. Furthermore, there
seems to be a Europe-wide network of like-minded geeks – my bartender’s
favourite brewery turned out to be Haandbryggeriet from my home town Drammen in
Norway, so we had plenty to chat about. I managed to try a couple more local
beers on tap too, a Red Ale from the same brewery, which was
also excellent, but the evening’s highlight was an unfiltered Pilsner-style beer
from a brewery in Crete which had unusual, but absolutely wonderful hops, no
skips and just a hint of jumps. I’m pretty certain that this was probably the
best 3rd beer I’ve ever had.

The best pilsner in Greece

My final beer was a bottled beer, and
at this point the GBG produced the ultimate GBG tool, namely a bottle opener
that did not bend the cap so that I could bring it undamaged home to my
collection! Never have I felt more at home in a pub. I was practically ready to
move in. Unfortunately, though there was a good supply of popcorn and other
beer snacks, I got hungry.

The final beer, opened with the best bottle opener known to mankind.

Thessaloniki has hundreds of places to eat, but I decided to
try only one, in fact the one conveniently situated about 20 metres from the
beer pub. This turned out to have great Greek food, and since I was in a great
Greek mood I decided to have another Greek beer. The selection was,
unsurprisingly, very limited, but they had at least avoided the foreign crap
(Amstel) that seems to get shipped to Greece by the boatload, probably because
the Dutch themselves don’t want to drink such rubbish, and offered a beer from
the interestingly-named brewery “Fix”. The beer was actually OK too, with a
decent hoppy taste.

OK, time to start wrapping things up, it’s only a few weeks
to Christmas after all. The Greek craft beer scene exists, but you have to do
some research (the internet helps) to find it. Once you do, you’re likely to be
surrounded by a bunch of very friendly GBGs that are happy to talk about
anything as long as it’s related to beer. If you can’t be bothered and decide
to just order the standard Mythos, Alfa or (Bacchus forbid) one of the Dutch
imports, you’ve missed out big time, especially if you’re in Thessaloniki. I
read somewhere that the Michelin guide defines a three star place as “a
restaurant that’s worth an entire trip by itself”, and that’s exactly what I
would say about The Hoppy Pub. Yes, it’s that good. I’d suggest going for a few
days, or perhaps even make it a full Greek Beer Geek Week. The airport code is
SKG, and the bus into town costs 2 euros. See you there! Στην υγειά μας!